TWELVE FULL OUNCES

Quite a different story, this, from the Coca Cola story, recounted in E.J. Kahn's The Big Drink (Random House- 1960), although the Pepsi-Cola history is also a record of American drive and ingenuity. Four names dominated its checkered career:- Caleb Bradham, pharmacist of New Bern, N. Ca., who patented his soft drink back in 1903, and built it to success by '21- and to disaster, when the sugar market collapsed; Roy Megargel, whose faith kept it alive, only to encounter a second bankruptcy; Charles C. Guth of Loft, incorporated, who made Pepsi-Cola a national byword, but who overplayed his luck and went down in a sensational lawsuit, ""Left v. Guth""; and Walter Mack, who ushered in the new era of international fame. There is enough of anecdote and human interest here to carry the reader along, but in the main this is a story of deals and proxy fights, of stock manipulations and of good breaks and bad in the ups and downs of a product that brought fortunes to some and ruin to others. Another segment of industrial history.